What really concerns me about anti-natalism

I don’t really consider myself pro natal.

I really love kids, have them myself and would recommend the experience highly. I don’t really care that much if the population drops though, I guess. It isn’t a political project or issue for me at all. I think we’ll adjust. It seems inevitable that the world and national population will get older.

I’m also not bothered by people not wanting to have kids. To each his own.

I do feel bothered by “anti natal” discourse sometimes, because I do like kids and think parenting is a cool experience. So many times the anti-natal perspective is overly negative about parenting and children more generally. A lot of what they say, imo, is basically bullshit.

One of the anti-natal propaganda offensives that I think is most suspect is this claim that many women regret becoming mothers. I’m sure there are some people who do feel that way, especially people who have children under really bad circumstances. But what I see more often is someone, even someone who had kids under terrible circumstances, who says it was the best thing that ever happened to them.

Moms will say things to other moms in confidence that they wouldn’t say openly in a mixed crowd. I’ve never had a mom friend confide in me that she regrets having kids. (Regrets getting married to a specific man? Yes.) Anyway, it’s one of those things that’s impossible to disprove.

The opposite could be true as well of course. People could regret not having kids. And to be fair, many people who don’t have kids wanted to, and couldn’t for some reason, and that is a big source of pain and grieving for some people. I am really sympathetic toward them and this isn’t about casting judgement on them.

My concern is this, I think a lot of the online “discourse” about this undersells parenthood, and is written by maladjusted grifters. Everything on the internet is like that, to be fair. Anyway, I worry people who are too credulous about all this and are on the fence about having kids will be “influenced” into not doing it, when they might have really enjoyed it.

If you’re the kind of person who enjoys having a dog, like me, I think you’d enjoy having kids. There is something very gratifying about caring for something. (I would recommend getting a dog too, even though it’s a huge hassle.)

That relationship, the relationship a parent has with a kid, would be hard to replace. My daughter and son, the physical intimacy of that relationship, I just have never had with a friend. Putting aside the obvious fact that I carried them and then nursed them. Even now, their pre teens, my daughter will do things like goofily stick her finger up my nose. We sleep together sometimes. I suppose it’s possible to have this level of intimacy with a non relative, but I think it’s very rare. It’s not something, I think, would be easy for me to recreate in another relationship.

To be fair, that might be partly due to my own social limitations. I know there’s this idea of the chosen family, in progressive circles, borrowed from gay culture. And many LGBTQ people who are rejected from their families, might have additional barriers to having kids.

Honestly, it’s a nice idea. This way of living places more importance on close friends, less on family. I saw a TV show one time, about these people in their 20s in LA, and the guy, a straight male, would take baths with his best friend. (They’d wear swimming trunks.) And I was just like 🤯. So apparently there are people that are succeeding with friendships and intimacy in ways I can’t imagine and I don’t want to diminish how awesome and important that can be in life.

I am honestly jealous of people like this. I have friends I really love of course. But, for me anyway, close friends are always moving. I just lost another one to a cross country move. Something’s always changing, schools, relationships. Those relationships have never had the same kind of permanence for me that my family relationships, like my relationships with my parents did. I still keep in touch with childhood friends, but we don’t live in the same cities, etc. For me, I haven’t been able to rely on them to the degree I would a family member a lot of times. And that is probably partly my fault to be fair.

I’m in my mid 40s now. My kids are pre teens. We went to the amusement park last week. And my son and I rode on a rollercoaster. The picture was funny. I got suckered into buying it for the second year in a row.

I can’t imagine a timeline where I would be having more fun at this age. I’m getting too old for rollercoasters, I got kinda sick. Next time, we’ll have the kids bring friends so I can just watch the rides.

People are lonelier than ever right now. We don’t have strong community institutions now. People don’t even go into offices. It’s concerning how much time people spend alone.